DIY thread.....

[frederic]

Summing amps are where SO many consoles fall apart, after all. It'd be a fun project for me.

Absolutely.

I made a small mixer years ago when I had a portable bass rig, and what I did was run most of the mixer on a +/- 12V supply, and the summing op amps on a +/- 15V supply. Gave extra headroom without clipping.

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

intake plenums built!!

Howdy folks. Well, i finally built the two "intake" plenum boxes. Still have to cut out for the fan isolator holes, which house a rubber bushing/gasket to isolate fan vibration. Even though these plenums are actually held in place by the top and bottom 703, I still want to isolate them from the plenums. There are two plenums, and 2 fans per plenum. These will pressuize the interior of the box with fresh air, and the exhuast fans will pull this fresh air into the computers through venting holes in the computer case. I built these from scrap 1/4" veneered MDF for the tops, bottoms and ends. The sides and baffles are 1/8" 5 ply baltic birch. I wanted these to assemble quick, so I dadoed some alignment slots in the tops and bottoms. Then I used a HOT glue
gun to hold it together. Worked great, but had to assemble quickly. Unfortunately, this hot glue stuff is messy. Oh well, they're only plenums. Not art.

The next one will be the exhaust plenum with two "slot fans" Anyway, heres the progress.

fitZ

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

Howdy gents. Well, I finally finished up my plenums. There is always something that takes more time to build templates etc than to do the actual project. This one is no exception. In order to cut 2 round holes in the plenum side and the fan mounts, I first had to build a routing jig to cut the holes. And it had to hold down 2 different size parts. The holes had to be the exact size of the INSIDE DIAMETER of the fan housing themself. There is only 1/16th in difference between the inside and outside of the fan housing. The only thing I could find to ride the router bit bearing on was the inside diameter of a plastic drain pipe. No big deal. I simply cut two pieces 3/4" long, cut a hole the in the middle of a piece of 3/4" plywood to hold both template rings precisely where the holes had to be in relationship to the piece being machined, and hot glued them in place. Took two hours to build the jig and only 4 minutes to route 2 holes in four pieces. Such is machining work. The same jig could be used for one or a thousand parts. In this case, only one plenum side and a fan mount per plenum were required. Here is a pic of the template jig.

Here is the finished side before glueing it on the plenun. Note the small piece of 703 at one end of the baffle inclosure. There is another piece at the other end of the 90 degree duct bend(can't see it here) to stop longitudinal standing waves. I don't care about vertical or sideways standing waves. At least thats the theory(these would be "modes" of the plenum inside dimensions I believe, but fan noise is what I'm trying to absorb)

Here is the "fan motor mount" with 1/2"x 5/16" weatherstripping foam applied to the back side. This(supposedly)will isolate fan motor vibration from the plenum itself. We'll see. I'm sure an engineer would calculate this stuff and test it. Well I'm no engineer

A tape job to spread a little contact cement on the plenum side and to the foam on the fan mount.

Here is the finished assembly

Here is the fans mounted(remember there are TWO assemblies)

And here is one plenum installed. I just slips into its position. Nothing to hold it but the 703 and some weather stripping "iso" pads at the junction to the plenum opening.

Now for the tough one. The exhaust fan "manifolds" and slot fans plenum. Good god, at this rate I'll finish about 2010.

 

[notbradsohner]

thats cool Rick. You should post this over at the DIY foru...............................................wait, nevermind

 

[Neito]

BUMP



Although all hope may be lost.

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

Although all hope may be lost.

Are you kidding? I've just finished the CAD vertical section of my consoles M-3700 mod. Will start the thread tonight after I move the mixer in its new home. Actually, this is quite a mod. Lots of little details to consider and I haven't had much time, but this weekend is MINE!!! I almost completely redesigned my console to fit this baby in it, but, time being what it is, I'm going to settle on the path of least
resistance, and get on with finishing the studio.
Anyway, hope is not lost. Just postponed for a while. At least till tonight.

 

[CoolCat]

I propose to the admins that we have a full-time DIY thread/topic. I truly think this would be a good additon to this already wonderful forum.

here's another, brother

I was plugging ports on my speakers, then read more and more..foam, socks, towels.....

these seemed a bit better imo. rubber flexable "feet" or Furniture leg tips..

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...&hl=en&lr=lang_en&rlz=1B2GGGL_en_____202&sa=G

 

[Eclectist]

I've collected a few DIY tricks that I could share. Maybe we just need to start the 'DIY Thread' here.

• Not only are the rubber feet good at plugging ports on speakers, I've used them on the butt of drumsticks as makeshift mallet heads. Not a replacement for actual mallets, but if you realize that a roll on a cymbal with sticks is simply killing the dynamic of a song, these are good in a pinch. In the same vein, broomstraw from synthetic (plastic) brooms make great pseudo brushes, and are damn-near indestructable. Just drizzle Gorilla Glue all over the butt and about four inches up (make sure that it hits all the brushes, or they'll come apart from the inside out about the time that you get deep in a groove). The same technique can be used on plastic dowels of various diameters to achieve pseudo-Hot Rods like those by Pro-Mark. I don't like the commercial brand, but the ones that I made with smaller diameter dowels are awesome. To me.
  
• Another good DIY for drummers is using a simple length of ball-chain as a sizzler for cymbals - after all, plenty of consumer-grade sizzlers are simply ball-chain anyway. I imagine any good length of brassy chain would work, with varying dynamics according to the chain, but I also imagine that this would screw up your cymbals in a hurry if it were heavy enough. Drums are really good places to start with for DIYers. I could go on for days about the proper diameter of steel conduit pipe to use in a DIY drum stands and racks, cymbal stands, etc. I could also go on for days about trying to make a set of drums out of PVC ducting, but that story doesn't end quite as well.
  
• Another good DIY trick is using the thermal gel packs (a quick google gives me http://www.customgelpax.com, but I think mine were from Igloo) as makeshift shockmounts. Wrap the mic in the gelpack, and put the whole thing in the clamp; the liquid dampens the vibrations to the mic. Again, this is not a replacement for a quality shockmount, but if you notice one of your 57's are buzzing at the clamp, try this out.
  
• A dude who I used to jam with once showed me a really funky looking capo; it was adjustable in that it could capo certain strings but not others. I asked how he did it, and he replied that it was nothing more than a turnbuckle with two screws at either end, a small spring wrapped in rubber across the back (to provide tension), and six nut-and-bolt combinations in the hollow of the turnbuckle , with rubber glued onto the head of the bolts- when he wanted to just capo the fifth and third strings at the fourth fret (sic), he'd unscrew the nut-and-bolt combinations on the sixth, fourth, second, and first strings. I was agog. He said 'You think that's cool, look at this...' and pulled out another one out of his bag; basically the same thing except that this one had a pickup attached, hanging off to one side of the capo, and a jack taped to the back of it. He put it on, and lo and behold, once it was capo'd the guitar had a second fingerboard on it, as the pickup pointed to the headstock. He explained that the string geometries were way different, but that once you got used to it, and carefully amp'd the second pickup, you could get some interesting noises by tapping. I tried to make my own for about six months, but the nut-and-bolt combos were to high or unbalanced or something, because they kept falling over - I eventually gave up on it. I didn't even try to put a pickup on it. Of course, he was an electrical engineer, and the only thing I've ever soldered is speaker wire, so that may have something to do with it. I often thought he should patent it, but he said he was waiting until he could figure out how to capo different frets, as well as different strings, all from one capo. Dude could wail on guitar, too.
  

Most of this was trial and error, born out of the moment, often in desperation - "We all had to take vacation time to get together to record, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let a buzzing mic clamp screw it up." Some of them were crazy ideas in the middle of the night ("Hey, I bet rubber mallets could be made out of those little rubber bootie-things") that happened to work, and some were crazy ideas that I pored over for months ("Hey, cheap drum shells from PVC ducting! Eureka!") that didn't work out. Your mileage will definitely vary.

 

[SikRik]

I love this thread. I used to have an Omni-Rax until my new location got ridiculously smaller. I've discovered that with a table saw you can build just about anything. I built a custom mixer desk, an isolation booth with a window and ventilation, and some custom sound panels.

Cheers to all of you D.I.Y. guys!